Jeff Caron replaces the legendary Steve Gaspar at Dartmouth

DARTMOUTH — Jeff Caron, one of the last links to Durfee High School's basketball glory days, is the new boys basketball coach at Dartmouth High School. Caron, who has been Dartmouth's director of athletics since 2009, replaces the legendary Steve Gaspar, who retired after 27 seasons on the Indians' bench.

DARTMOUTH — Jeff Caron, one of the last links to Durfee High School's basketball glory days, is the new boys basketball coach at Dartmouth High School. Caron, who has been Dartmouth's director of athletics since 2009, replaces the legendary Steve Gaspar, who retired after 27 seasons on the Indians' bench.

"I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity to get back into coaching and I can't wait to get started," said Caron, who's last coaching experience was at his former high school from 2006-07 through 2008-09.

Caron was selected from what he called "a list of a half-dozen or so candidates" but said he wasn't involved in the selection process. "That was done by the superintendent and the associate principal and I was told by the associate principal that I had been selected," he said.

Caron played four years of basketball at Durfee and, for his last three seasons, played a complimentary role to standout Chris Herren as the pair helped lead the Hilltoppers to a combined regular-season record of 50-10 and deep into the postseason tournament all three years (1991-92 through 1993-94). Those three teams were coached by Skip Karam, who retired the following season.

Caron was elevated to the varsity late in his freshman year and, in the four years he was on the roster, Durfee never won fewer than 16 games in a regular season. Since Karam left, double-figure-win seasons have been few and far between on the Fall River campus.

After transferring from UMass Amherst, Caron played four years of basketball at Merrimack College and eventually returned to Durfee, where he was named the school's athletic director and later replaced Kevin Whiting as the boys varsity basketball coach, a position he held for three seasons. Caron was named Dartmouth AD and Director of Health and Physical Education, grade K though 12, just prior to the start of the 2009 school year.

As much as he hoped to return to basketball, Caron had no intention of replacing Gaspar on the Dartmouth bench.

"Basketball has been a part of my life since the age of four and having played and coached the sport, I've always been passionate about it," he admitted. "I thought about how nice it would be to get back into coaching but, believe me, I never seriously considered coaching here (at Dartmouth) as long as Steve was leading the team. I have too much respect for him to even think about that."

But, when Gaspar decided to call it quits, Caron's passion took over.

"When he told me this was going to be his final season, that's when I seriously started thinking about getting back into it (coaching)," he said. "Like the other candidates, I applied for the position, was interviewed and I was fortunate enough to be hired. I honestly couldn't give you the exact number of people who applied and I had nothing to do with the interview process," he said.

Once he learned he had the job, Caron met with next year's team captains and then called Gaspar. "I wanted Steve to hear it from me rather than from someone else and I wanted to introduce myself to the players and tell them a little bit of what they could expect," he said.

In another coaching change, Josh Silva was named the boys varsity soccer coach, replacing Steve Frank, who resigned following last season. Silva is a former soccer standout at Dartmouth and was a three-year captain of the Rhode Island College soccer squad. He has been an assistant coach on both the high school (Dartmouth) and college (RIC) levels and is presently a teacher at the Dartmouth Middle School.